Head of clinical safety

Band 8b · Clinical safety officer · 619 job evaluation points

Owns the organisation's clinical risk management system for health IT, leads the clinical safety team, and gives the board assurance that its digital services are clinically safe.

Responsibilities

Own the clinical risk management system, policy, and processes for all health IT.
Lead and develop the clinical safety team and the wider network of safety-trained clinicians.
Assure safety cases for major systems and make the final clinical safety recommendation on deployment.
Lead the response to serious safety incidents involving health IT, including with partners and suppliers.
Report clinical safety risks and assurance to the board and its committees.
Build a culture of clinical safety across digital, clinical, and supplier teams.

Skills

Skill	Expected level	What this level means
Registered clinical practice in digitalThis reference	Expert (4)	You can: lead clinical professional standards for the organisation's digital work act as a senior clinical voice in decisions about patient safety and care support the revalidation and professional development of clinicians in digital roles
Clinical risk managementThis reference	Expert (4)	You can: own the clinical risk management system for the organisation set clinical safety policy and assure safety cases for major systems lead the response to serious safety incidents involving health IT build a culture of clinical safety across digital teams
Human factors and usability in clinical systemsThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: plan and run human factors assessments of clinical systems turn findings into design changes and clinical safety controls assess alert burden and the risk of workarounds
Medical device software regulationThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: assess whether a product is a medical device, and its likely class plan the regulatory work for a product with quality and clinical colleagues
Clinical leadership in digitalThis reference	Expert (4)	You can: set the clinical direction for the organisation's digital services lead clinical leaders across organisations through digital change advise the board on clinical risk and benefit of digital investment
Organisational risk managementThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: run the risk process for a directorate or programme assess risks against the risk appetite and escalate them report on risks to committees
People managementThis reference	Practitioner (3)	You can: line manage a team, setting objectives and running appraisals support wellbeing and manage attendance, performance, and conduct plan the team's development and succession
Leadership and guidanceUK GDaD PCF	Practitioner (3)	You can: make decisions characterised by medium levels of risk and complexity and recommend decisions as risk and complexity increase build consensus between services or independent stakeholders identify problems or issues in the team dynamic and rectify them engage in varying types of feedback, choosing the right type at the appropriate time and ensuring the discussion and decision stick bring people together to form a motivated team and help create the right environment for a team to work in facilitate the best team makeup depending on the situation
Enabling and informing risk-based decisionsUK GDaD PCF	Expert (4)	You can: act as a point of escalation be trusted by senior risk owners as an expert in security apply risk methodologies at the most complex levels of risk

Typical qualifications and experience

Current registration with a clinical professional body, with extensive clinical and leadership experience.
Extensive experience of leading clinical risk management for health IT across an organisation.

Band 8b outline

Knowledge: Expert knowledge across several disciplines or a large service.
Autonomy: Shapes policy and strategy for a large area.
Scope: Several services or teams, or a principal-level discipline.
Leadership: Manages managers, or is the principal authority in a discipline.
Accountability: Several services, their staff, and their budgets.

Job evaluation (illustrative)

Factor	Level	Level summary	Points
Communication and relationship skills	5	Gives highly complex or contentious information needing developed persuasion and negotiation, presents to large groups, or communicates where there are significant barriers to acceptance.	45
Knowledge, training, and experience	7	Highly developed specialist knowledge across the range of the specialism (master's level or equivalent).	196
Analytical and judgemental skills	5	Judgements on highly complex facts or situations needing analysis, interpretation, and comparison of options.	60
Planning and organisational skills	5	Forms long-term strategic plans, with uncertainty and effects across the organisation.	60
Physical skills	2	Skills gained through practice, such as standard keyboard use or driving.	15
Responsibility for patient and client care	6	Develops specialised care, gives highly specialised advice, or is accountable for part of a clinical service.	39
Responsibility for policy and service development	4	Implements policy and develops policy or services for a service or several areas.	32
Responsibility for financial and physical resources	3	Authorises payments, buys some assets or supplies, monitors or holds a delegated budget, or maintains assets.	21
Responsibility for people	3	Manages a group of staff day to day, teaches core or specialist training, or gives core HR advice.	21
Responsibility for information resources	5	Designs and develops major information systems, or runs information systems for several services as the main duty.	34
Responsibility for research and development	2	Regularly does research, development, trials, or equipment and system testing as part of the job.	12
Freedom to act	5	Works within general policies, and in most cases decides how to interpret them.	45
Physical effort	1	Sitting, standing, and walking, with little physical effort.	3
Mental effort	4	Frequent prolonged concentration, or occasional intense concentration.	18
Emotional effort	2	Occasional exposure, or frequent indirect exposure, to distressing circumstances.	11
Working conditions	2	Occasional unpleasant conditions, frequent travel or outdoor work, or near-continuous screen use on most days.	7
Total (Band 8b: 585 to 629)			619

Patient care is scored at level 6 because the job is accountable for the clinical safety of the organisation's health IT. Emotional effort reflects regular review of incidents involving patient harm.